Wanted: Spring

The other morning the weather (in the 20s) made #1 so furious she grabbed her crayons, a piece of paper and went to work producing this poster:I cannot say that I blame her. I too am a bit tired of my water bottle that I leave in the car after running being frozen every morning. And I am a bit tired of the still present mounds of ice-snow in parking lots (the salt preserves them for a good spell).Spring is coming though. The kids, the VOR and I have been out in the yard passing baseball, the lilacs are budding, the rhubarb is emerging, and the ground is thawed and muddy.

In other news the VOR and I volunteer in #2's class every Monday (on a rotating basis). When one of us enters the school we have to sign in. Normally they have the standard Bic pen for the sign in folder. This week, however, nothing could have prepared me for the writing instrument that awaited me.

Spring

The news from last night, the good news from last night I still cannot fully fathom it. I know my nephew has a rough road ahead of him, right now he is in terrible pain but the cancer has been removed his spine will cease to push on his brain, the headaches will stop, his spine will stop pushing on his legs, the night screams will stop, amazing, simply amazing.

Today is the first day of a new life for him. Fitting that it is the first day of Spring. So for my nephew may we all pray the prayer/poem written by Robert Frost:

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

Author: Robert Frost
Online Poetry at PoetryFeast.com

In a fitting way on the first day of Spring the NY Times ran a first page story on the organic garden to be planted on the White House grounds. I feel this is huge for community gardens, healthy eating, whole foods, joyful alternatives to agri-business models of farming, and the slow food movement.

If you have not yet checked out Google's logo today and you are an Eric Carle fan then you need mosey over to google as Michael Scott said last night "ASAP as possible."